----- "Unauthorized" movie reviews ... and here and there a few other things ----- (check the Motto for more info)

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Screamers (1995)

As it can be seen I'm a bit out of subject. I had to recycle something from memories, movie that I recalled by chance after I finally finished reading "The Man in the High Castle" by P.K. Dick. By chance = I've checked IMDb to see what are the chances of the mentioned title to still get on screen (seems they're fine), and I've parsed the list of movies based on PKD material released until now. I've forgotten about "Screamers", so let me try forcing a bit my brain to see what I can remember ...

The movie is a Canadian production (as far as I remember), quite old as it can be seen, with not too many actors, Peter Weller ("Robocop") being probably the most known of them. The story goes like this: somewhere on a planet colonized for mining purposes, two sides are at war for quite a while, one using as weapons the "screamers". A sort of subterranean robots able to detect living beings and having attached some very sharp blades - in other words a sort of mobile and reusable anti-personal mines. On top of that in the features is included also an advanced AI = self-repairing and maintenance. I think it starts to be obvious where this is going, right ? ;) Well, one day, after a long period of silence in the conflict, the commander of one side receives a truce message from the adverse party and leaves the camp to check what's behind this. What he finds .. you can see in the movie :) (I don't remember very exactly anyway).

The production is low-budget, and from what I remember not very spectacular = probably resembles quite a lot an episode from "The Outer Limits", at least much more than a mainstream movie. But the story is ok and it gets a bit more alert towards the end ( I recall an ending twist, or something around there ). What's interesting to see is that even though the movie was released in '95 the base material, much more older, can be considered as an inspiration source for quite many films where the AI in robots/machines gets crazy, exponential being obviously "Terminator" and being followed by many others. So, to conclude, if you're in the mood for a decent SciFi without expecting much as production value, give it a chance ;)